The use of credit cards to pay for purchases is common in today's world. Most retail merchants have a dedicated card reading or charge authorization terminal ("CAT") for authorizing customer purchases by credit card. Each CAT is set up for the exclusive use of a single merchant. This works fine in many or most retail situations. However, there are certain situations where more than one merchant, or separate business entities, share retail or office space. This is a typical arrangement for many of today's professionals, such as doctors, for example.
By way of illustration, many doctors operate individual practices but share a receptionist and accounting department with other doctors. Many of these doctors are now allowing patients to pay for services by using credit cards. In situations of this kind, the shared accounting department needs to have a separate CAT for each doctor. In other words, if five doctors are practicing out of a single office, the accounting department needs to have five CATs.
In situations like the one described above, i.e., five doctors using five CATs, the total time utilization for all five would be relatively small. Nevertheless, each doctor would pay separately for his or her respective terminal.
It is possible to compress the unnecessary duplication of individual CATs in situations like the above into a single terminal that is usable by more than one professional (or merchant, as the case may be). The present invention recognizes this and provides a more efficient and cost-effective means for multiple merchants to obtain charge authorization.